It's time for the cosplay wrestlers to do cosplay wrestling at the cosplay convention! Right?! Is that what the worst people on earth are saying on Twitter and their agonizing podcasts?

I always love wrestling in weird venues. I light a candle every night as I pray for Tony Khan to bring back the WCW Spring Break setup where a ring gets suspended over a swimming pool. I loved it when Beyond Wrestling did stuff on an actual beach.

Unfortunately, the convention center here for GalaxyCon has an actual arena portion of the building. I would have loved to have seen a ring setup on the main convention floor with bleachers and shit but with enough view of the convention hall to see folks walking around and doing convention stuff.

I don't know what it is that makes wrestling feel so special and fun when it's done outside of a standard arena. Maybe it's because professional wrestling itself is a business for freaks and weirdos (complimentary) and it becomes more fun to look at when it's in some bizarre location. It's just the spectacle, I guess.

Anyway, enough lamenting about WISP (Wrestling In Strange Places) – let's get to Collision!

Juice Robinson's Loss is Komander's Gain

Nobody likes to see anybody get injured. Juice Robinson is one of my special little guys and with him just coming off of an injury, I was pretty excited to see what he'd get to do in the C2. Unfortunately, he broke his fibula in his opening match and that was all she wrote for the ole Juicer.

Rather than giving everybody in the block 3 points, it was decided that Komander would take Juice's place. Makes sense! Juice was never going to win the thing – he'd maybe get a total of 3 points by the end of the tournament. Someone like Komander could slot right in there and do the same thing, or even get 0 points and still be fine.

Komander's first match in the tournament was against Ricochet last night on Rampage (one of the best Rampage's of the year) and it was fantastic. Komander had the crowd behind him and they (and I) bit on a bunch of nearfalls where it looked like Komander could pull off the upset.

Ricochet came out on top, predictably, but the match was a real showcase for Komander.

Tonight, against Darby Allin, Komander did more of the same. He got the crowd behind him, and while nobody was going to boo Darby Allin it was nice to hear the crowd equally behind both guys.

With Juice out, Komander has the opportunity to make this tournament a star-making few weeks for himself. He's well on his way there after just two matches and he could come out as a serious singles contender once this whole thing wraps up.

If there were people in the crowd who had never seen wrestling, or even just AEW, and decided to pop in because it was happening at the convention then I couldn't think of a better first match to see. This is the shit that hooks new fans in because it's two wrestlers going absolutely nuts on each other for 15 minutes. You don't need to know either guy's backstory or storylines, you just get to be in awe that people can do this stuff and continue living a (relatively) normal life.

AEW's future is on lock with Kyle Fletcher and Daniel Garcia

I sing the praises of Kyle Fletcher and Daniel Garcia a lot, but man is it ever becoming more and more obvious how important these guys could be to the future of AEW with each passing week of the Continental Classic.

Fletcher has been on an all-star run the past year and has never looked better, more confident, or more like a main event wrestler than he does right now. He doesn't look like a young wrestler unsure when he's in there with veterans; he holds his own with Kazuchika goddamn Okada of all people and looks right doing so.

Fletcher's confidence is on another level right now and it sends his entire presentation to another level. I let out an audible "Holy shit!" when Fletcher pinned Okada tonight. I'm annoyed that it came after yet another low blow shot, something we just saw with Claudio on Wednesday. It'd be one thing if Fletcher was the only one cheating to win matches, but he's not – he's cheated twice now and Claudio has as well.

It's especially grating when it's the same method of cheating from two guys across matches – a slight referee distraction leading to a kick on the dick.

Daniel Garcia is currently where Fletcher was maybe 6-8 months ago. He's a guy just starting his ascent after his TNT Title win, but he's another wrestler who always has the crowd behind him and can connect with live crowds in a big way.

Garcia also had a major showing against Okada, wrestling the Continental Champion to a 20-minute draw for 1 point a piece. Last night on Rampage he defeated The Beast Mortos for 3, but tonight he continued the trend of champions losing in the tournament with a loss to Mark Briscoe.

Briscoe has now tied his points total from last year by picking up his first win, and if we're playing by New Japan G1 rules then he's also secured himself a future TNT Title shot.

Garcia, on the other hand, has already surpassed his points total from last year's tournament so anything else that comes is a success. I still see him in the runner-up spot in the block, losing in the semi-finals to setup Okada/Ospreay in the finals but he's going to need to win his two remaining matches, one of which (Shelton Benjamin) I picked for him to lose.

Still, after whatever contract bullshit was going on got resolved, AEW seems to have thankfully renewed their focus on Garcia. As TNT Champion exiting the tournament with a bucketload of points as a semifinalist, Garcia will be setup to continue on with strong title defenses for as long as he has that belt in his grasp.

Then? Boost him over to the International or Continental Titles; this time next year, if Garcia stays on the Fletcher trajectory (Trafletchtory?), he could be a serious World Title contender.

Wrapping Up

Mina Shirakawa and Emi Sakura had a real stinker of a match. I wouldn't have expected that! Emi usually delivers big time whenever she gets a match on Dynamite or Collision. Something seemed off with their communication here or something, though.

On the other hand, Serena Deeb and Willow Nightingale had a fun match. I wish they'd do more with Deeb! Even though I knew in my guts that Willow was going to win, I still bit on the nearfall after the Detox (did I correctly hear Nigel call this the Deebtox?).

I'm guessing Willow vs Jamie Hayter ends due to some sort of Julia Hart spookiness. It seems like more and more matches are ending with some kind of bullshit finish lately in AEW, and I wish they'd get back to just letting people lose clean in competitive matches more often. It doesn't really hurt anyone to lose a hard-fought back. As long as someone's not being squashed, they'll be fine!

I love Death Wish Orange Cassidy, who can't be bothered to care what happens to him as long as it means he's getting under the skin of Jon Moxley and Death Riders. Interesting wrinkle to add FTR into the story but I figure they'll get a big win (with a pin on Yuta) against the Death Riders on the January 1 Fight For The Fallen show in Asheville for a feel-good moment.

And now? Let's check in with my picks.

This week, I came up short with Fletcher/Okada and Garcia/Briscoe, where I expected both title holders to drop as few falls as possible. Still, I'm not doing terribly bad in the gold league – but there have been some outcomes in the blue league I wasn't expecting that have thrown me for a bit of a loop.